Living the Gray Life

A Fitness & Lifestyle Blog

| Posted in: Chit Chat

August Recap & Chit Chat

Okay so I know it’s seeming like I’m doing chit chat posts every other week, but I swear this trend isn’t going to continue. This month has just been insane and I want to keep y’all updated on everything! Although I do love chit chat posts, I don’t want them to just become ‘filler’ content for y’all. So, I’m limiting myself to around one a month.

For the future, I’m going to be doing chit chat posts at the end of each month where I’ll be talking about my month and covering my blog stats for said month. I did one of these at the end of July, and y’all loved it so I’m bringing them back every month. I love being transparent with y’all, and these monthly recaps and chit chats are my favorite way to do so!

Okay now that that little bit of housekeeping is out of the way, let me just say one thing: HAPPY FALL! Yes, yes I know that technically it isn’t fall until September 21st/22nd, but in my mind, fall starts on September 1st. I stole this tradition from Cristina, and low key I have all these fall-themed coffee mugs and I can’t wait any longer to use them.

Alright, so here’s what’s been happening since the last chit chat:

  • Classes started back, and although I love not having classes on Friday, I don’t look forward to my 8:05 on Mondays. Now, I’m a total morning person, but trying to find the motivation to get up and go to an 8 AM coding class that is a solid 20 minute walk from my dorm is impossible. Please just let me sleep and not think about coding C++ when I’m barely half awake.
  • All of my residents are now moved in and settled, and they’re all great. They’re a little more rowdy than my floor last year, but I’ll take it. So far, so good.
  • I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll be accepted to go to this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration in Miami, Florida. I went last year, had a blast, learned a lot, and I would be honored to go again this year. Now that I know how it all works, I feel like I would be way more prepared this year, and I would love to score an amazing internship.
  • Over the past month, I’ve been slowly increasing my macros to adjust to the constant walking around campus and it’s also slowly turning into bulking season, and I think I’ve reached where I want to be. My energy is great, I’m sleeping really well, and my performance in the gym is on point. Hopefully things will stay this way, but I’ll let you know in about a week if said ‘maintenance’ isn’t really maintenance after all.
  • Let’s talk about the eclipse that happened earlier this month. Because that was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Columbia was luckily in the direct path, and we saw over 2 minutes of totality. I never thought it would actually get as dark as it did, and tbh, I will remember those 2 minutes and 36 seconds for the rest of my life.
  • For once in my life I’ve actually been consistent with using Insta stories. I post my daily workouts, behind-the-scenes of college life, and #AbigailsRandomGymThoughts. I really love sharing what I’m doing each day, and hopefully it helps you if you’re trying to come up with workouts!
August Recap 2017

It’s weird to be back at school and have life just be back in it’s normal routine. I feel like summer is this 3 month long dream, and it’s hard to settle back to reality. This past summer was truly amazing, and I got to spend it doing what I love most. I put everything I had into my fitness goals, and surprisingly enough, I achieved them.

I can’t wait to see what this semester holds, and I truly feel like it’s going to be a good one. Football season starts tomorrow (WHAT), fall-themed activities are about to take over my life, and give me pumpkin flavored everything.

Here’s what to look forward to:

  • A dorm room tour is coming! I’m not waiting until the end of December like last year LOL
  • Hopefully the Blogger Roundtable will be back in full swing in September
  • Fall-themed everything!

Monthly Stats

Surprisingly, this month’s stats were a bit lower than I was expecting. August is usually my peak month in regards to stats because back-to-school season is in full swing, and while this month’s stats were higher than last month’s, it’s nothing like last year’s 60,000+ views.

But, I don’t see that as a bad thing. While I would love to have my stats be a bit higher in August, the fact that didn’t change much means that I’m still receiving consistent traffic. I’ll take consistent traffic over spikes in traffic any day.

Pageviews: approx. 43,000
Unique Visitors: approx. 27,500

What went well:

  • My hours upon hours of post planning back in July actually paid off this month. I think I only missed one (?) upload for the entire month, and I’m pretty proud of that. Wait okay, I just checked my calendar and I didn’t miss a single post for the month of August. Way better than I thought.
  • My Instagram game has been on point. Although there’s a lot of gym selfies, I’m still posting on an almost daily basis. I’ve also figured out how to incorporate Instagram stories into my life, a
  • Scheduling EVERYTHING. I refuse to let myself schedule a post on this here blog without creating Facebook and Twitter graphics and scheduling a Facebook and Twitter post to go along with it.

What went wrong:

  • BoardBooster (affiliate link). Y’all I’ve had this for a month and I still don’t really understand how to optimally use it. So if you know, please help a girl out.
  • Engagement is still down on Instagram, and at this point I’m so over the algorithm. I know that followers do not define your worth, but it’s frustrating to be putting in all this work every day only to see that follower count stay exactly the same. Okay, mini-rant is over.

How was this past month for you? Have you started classes yet? Do you have anything exciting going on for September?

~abigail gray